Lifting Up the Down and Out.

I live my life today with the assurance of my Salvation, the living proof of my transformation and a burning desire to rise from my bed every morning with only one prayer in my heart. "Lord, until you bring me home to be with you for eternity do not let one day go by that you do not place a broken hurting person in my path that I can give the same hope you have given me in Christ Jesus, Amen."

I was born in Stamford, Texas in 1944 and shortly after moved to Meridian, Ms where I grew up. I attended Highland Elementary, Kate Griffin Jr. High,Meridian High School and went on to four years at Livingston State Teachers College inLivingston, Ala {now called UWA}. After leaving college I entered the feild of retailmanagement with F.W. Woolworth, then Woolco, then TG& Y, then Wal-Mart and finally Marvin's Home Center Stores. That career spanned over 30 years of my life. Early in mycareer {1966} I married my wife Pamela Smith Haynes from Shucktown, Ms. {that's right she was a country girl}. We had four children - Virginia, Tammy, Susan and Asa.Unfortunately for me and particularly for my wife and family I began a downward spiralover those 30 years that led me into behaviors centered totally around the lust of myeyes, the needs of my flesh and the pride of life that turned me into a dark and depraved man, husband and father. In 1996 when my family could take it no longer, my wife asked me for a divorce and my children basicly disowned me and then ordered me to get out and dont come back. Only then did I become willing to accept how deep into depravity I had sunk. And just when I though all was lost I met a man named Christ Jesus. He has not only saved me, saved my marriage and my family but He has literally transformed me into a totally new creation. What I once thought was the end of everything I now know was the BEGINNING of everything. Because I am so grateful for His mercy and loving kindness I have purposed along with my wife and family to spend the rest of my days on this earth crying out to hopeless and hurting individuals and families that no matter how bad it seems - Christ can redeem it, heal it and restore it. Hence my wife Pam and I founded Righteous Oaks Recovery Center for Men in Chunky, Ms in 2001 and Jacobs Well Recovery Center for Women in Poplarville, Ms in 2005.

The term: “tohavenoregrets”.Impliesasenseof having sinned but gaining a deep and sincere feelingof sorrow for and hatred of the sin we have committed with a strong {but humble} determinationnottosinagain

Grieve for your regrets. When we feel regret, we re-live our guilt, sadness or anger over and over again. Allowing yourself to experience these feelings fully with the intention of moving forward can help you stop revisiting them.

Stop burying your regrets! – you are burying them alive!

Recognize what you have learned or gained. When you find yourself thinking of the regret, turn your thoughts to the things you have learned and the opportunities that are now yours - even if they are not what you would have preferred. There is always a lesson even in pain and sadness. Look for the lesson and focus on it instead of “what might have been”.

When the devil tries to draw you back into the painful memories of your past, put your finger in his face in Jesus name and say this…

“Thank you Satan, for reminding me what it was like when you were in charge of my life…”

That was what I did but it is not who I am. I am the blood bought property of Christ Jesus. I am a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.

***I have found that there is an advantage to living almost 70 years on this earth because it brings wisdom and knowledge through experience and confirms the wisdom of God’s Word.

There Was a Time

Children were born to a loving mom and dad who had entered into a covenant marriage relationship – for better or worse, for richer or poorer, through sickness and health for as long as they both should live. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and even longer wedding anniversaries were common.

There was a time

Families lived in places called “neighborhoods” where parents new there neighbors by name. Not just their next door neighbors but their neighbors on adjacent streets around their neighborhoods as well.

There was a time

All the neighbors looked out for each other’s welfare and their children played together daily.

There was a time

If your children were playing in a neighbor’s yard they had full authority {with the other parents consent}over all the children playing there as it related to correcting bad behavior by any child. Not only did parents allow their neighbors to discipline their children if they were unruly, the neighbor was expected to call the child’s parents to report the bad behavior which would generally be dealt with again when they got home.

There was a time

Children attended neighborhood schools near their homes. Many of them walked to school together daily. Before the children began their school day, they all lined up out in front of the school near the flag pole where every day began with the Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, a patriotic song and a daily prayer.

There was a time

Teachers were highly esteemed and respected by their student and not only had complete and final authority over their classroom but had the full support of the children’s parents as it related to disciplinary action. Lord help the child who’s teacher had to call a parent to report a child’s bad or disrespectful behavior in the classroom.

There was a time

As young men and women began to mature and become attracted to one another instead of playing with dolls as with the girls or fishing in the nearby creek for the boys there began a process back then called “courtship.” In those once upon a time days it was a slow and arduous process. First you “liked” someone of the opposite sex. Then as it became more serious you began to refer to them as your boyfriend or girlfriend. If you were 14 or 15 your parents would consider letting you date which in the beginning would probably be a “double date” or even more humiliating your parents would drive you to and pick you up from your date – usually just a movie and a visit to the ice cream shop. Y’all, I can remember taking twenty minutes just trying to get up the courage to put my arm around a girl in a movie much less shoot for a kiss good night.

There was a time

When young adults who found themselves in a seriously romantic relationship {that is their relationship a progressed from liking to loving and wanting to spend the rest of their life together} they got engaged.Back then being engaged did not give them license to enter into a sexual relationship but rather signified to their families and close friends that at some appointed time in the future they planned to become husband and wife.Consummation of the relationship was reserved for the wedding night.

There was a time

When one man looked another in the eye and shook hands on an agreement, it was as binding as any written contract is today, because back then “a man’s word was as good as his bond.”

Almighty God warned us even in the midst of this wonderful time to “BEWARE” of the future in those verses declared in 2 Timothy 3:1-5

3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

I confess with a broken heart that the greatest enemy of the Christian Church is not Atheist groups or the ACLU or any other secular activist group you want to name but rather it is people who profess to be CHRISTIANS but will not stand for it’s principles nor walk in them daily.

We have become those “so-called Christians” that 2 Timothy 4:3 talks about:

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itchingears want to hear.”

And we are suffering a Roman 11:32 moment because of our disobedience.

32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.